


Hunted

by Jingletown



Category: EXID (Band), EXO (Band), K-pop, 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Genre: Cop Drama, EXO - Freeform, EXO/BTS, K-Pop - Freeform, K-Pop crossover, Multi, Murder Mystery, Serial Killers, bts - Freeform, literally k-pop serial killers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-03
Updated: 2017-03-16
Packaged: 2018-09-28 03:17:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10068611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jingletown/pseuds/Jingletown
Summary: In the city, Chanyeol hunts privilege. Namjoon hunts justice. Taehyung hunts sinners. Xiumin hunts just for the sake of hunting.Seokjin and Yoongi hunt hunters.Four killers, two detectives and a whole city in danger. Sometimes the hunters become the hunted, but sometimes it happens too late.





	1. Chapter 1

Seokjin couldn’t think of a worse way to start his day.

He slammed the door as he got out of the car, the momentum of it causing him to spill hot coffee on his thigh. Switching the cup to his other hand so that he could wipe his fingers on his coat, Jin swore and kicked the front tire.

“Well,” said Yoongi, coming around the front of the black sedan to join Seokjin on the street. “If you’re upset, you’re doing a great job hiding it.”

Fruitlessly trying to wipe away the wet, brown splotch on his pants, Jin glared at him. It was a death stare, really, one with several different layers and many motivations. Five years they’d been partners and just now had Yoongi’s face started to bug him – his smug, gummy smile, his narrow eyes, the annoying way the fierce East Coast winters did nothing to damage his skin or dull his platinum hair.

That morning, Yoongi’s unyielding handsomeness was just another thing pissing Jin off.

“This shit puts me in a bad mood,” Jin mumbled. He’d given up on the stain. No matter what he did, he was going to look like he’d pissed himself. Better to accept that now and hope that a bunch of cops standing around a crime scene would be mature enough not to draw attention to it.

“Everything puts you in a bad mood,” Yoongi pointed out. The wind picked up, chilling Jin to his bones and sending his already unruly bangs flopping across his forehead. He tried to use his fingers to smooth it down but the weather had other ideas. Through messy patches of brown hair, Jin looked to Yoongi.

Somehow, his hair looked _better_ than it had before.

“Don’t you ever have a bad hair day?” he griped harshly. Jin was letting his mind fixate on petty jealousies for just a minute, reveling in the way he could be upset about something so small, so insignificant.

In another few minutes, when Jin caught up with the rest of New York’s finest, it would be impossible to ignore the glaring ugliness of the world. Why not focus on the ugliness of Yoongi’s inability to look ugly instead?

Yoongi shrugged his shoulders, not because he didn’t understand the question but because he wanted to shield his neck and ears from the chill of late January.

“Sometimes,” he said, looking both ways before crossing the street. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his long winter coat, wishing he hadn’t forgotten his hat, his scarf _and_ his gloves on his dresser that morning. He hadn’t gotten a lot of sleep the night before – choosing the company of a young, pretty EMT over getting a full eight hours – and Jin’s unexpected wake-up call had startled him. In his haste, he’d forgotten everything but his wallet, badge and gun. “But I’m so good-looking that it doesn’t matter. I’d look just as good bald.”

Jin glared at him again, another death stare that made him wish he had magical head-exploding or hair-ruining laser powers, but shook it off.

Another three seconds of childish petulance was all he’d allow himself.

“You’re a real dick,” he said, stepping up on the curb.

Yoongi laughed, the same loud, dry laugh as always, and then they were back at work.

No longer was he Jin, angry guy with a vaguely heart-shaped splotch of coffee on his crotch.

It was 9 AM, Monday morning, and he was Detective Seokjin Kim of the New York City Police Department.

And the Downtown Strangler had just struck again.

The call came in at 7:45. A guy walking his dog had stumbled upon the body. (Actually, and Yoongi would be the only one to make this sort of correction, the dog found it. Rocky, a mutt that looked like he was part German Shepard and part something else. _He_ was the one who’d found the body. He just didn’t have the thumbs to call it in.)

Seokjin didn’t know the specifics – didn’t know the identity of the victim, didn’t know the time of death, didn’t know any of the details. There were only two things he’d known for sure – the body had been dumped in the same five-block radius as the last three, and the cause of death had been strangulation.

This body, like the ones that had preceded it, had been left in a construction site. And this crime scene, like the others, was flooded with nosy rubberneckers. They pushed at the boundaries that had been set, tried to take pictures of the body and drew loud, wildly inaccurate conclusions about the identity of the Downtown Strangler.

“The fourth victim in two months!” an older woman shouted. She fiddled with her scarf and huffed loudly like she was somehow more important than every other busybody in the group. “What are the police doing to protect our daughters?”

“They know who it is,” said a Hispanic teenager in a Chicago Bulls jacket, “but they’re not going to do anything. It’s all a big conspiracy! My buddy works for the mayor. He knows all about it.”

Jin took a very deep breath, willing himself not to do something he’d regret.

“Excuse us, folks,” he said, his back teeth grinding. “NYPD. We need to get through.”

As was protocol, they flashed their badges. Reluctantly, and while grumbling critiques and obscenities, the crowd parted to allow them a very narrow passageway.

“Thank you,” Yoongi said, offering a smile too warm for the day. He looked to the older woman, the loud one, and said, “I love your scarf, ma’am.”

She blushed the way all women did when Yoongi spoke and magically stopped spewing anti-police nonsense. Jin looked to Yoongi expectantly once they’d crossed under the yellow police tape but Yoongi just said, “Told you. I’m really good-looking.”

It wasn’t hard to spot the body, a human-shaped lump under a while sheet and surrounded by a bunch of cops pretending not to stare.

“What do we got?” Jin asked, sipping his coffee and gesturing to a baby-faced patrol cop who happened to be standing close-by. Without waiting for a response, he crouched down beside the body and reached for the sheet, but the young office stopped him.

“You might not want to do that,” he said, then pointed to the other side of the yard to where a pale, blonde officer was sitting on the ground. “Officer Wang threw up when he saw.”

Yoongi snorted.

“I remember those days,” he said, then offered the officer his hand. “We’re Detectives Min and Kim.”

“Officer Mark Lee,” he said. “I guess you guys get used to this stuff after a while, huh?”

“Unfortunately,” Jin mumbled. Then he took a deep breath and pulled back the sheet.

Whoever she was, she’d been young and pretty. Judging by the clothes and the makeup, she’d probably been a sex worker. That was consistent. The Downtown Strangler had killed three other prostitutes and that was just what they knew about. The bruising pattern around her neck was certainly consistent with strangulation but there was something else.

Something odd.

“Overkill,” Seokjin said quietly.

“Hmm?”

“Overkill,” he repeated and motioned for Yoongi to join him on the ground. He pulled the sheet back further and Officer Mark Lee grimaced before fully turning away. “All these slash marks, evidence of torture.” He shook his head. Whoever this girl was, she’d been through something awful. Her body had been broken, stabbed, violated. Her clothes were torn and soaked in blood, her skin pierced, split and, in some places, stripped away.

Yoongi raised an eyebrow, attempting to connect the dots.

“This is the work of the Downtown Strangler?”

“The Downtown Strangler?” Officer Mark Lee asked, facing the crowd. “Didn’t you hear?”

Jin and Yoongi exchanged a look.

“Hear what?” Jin asked. Because Officer Mark Lee was still a little green, Seokjin replaced the sheet and stood up, not needing anyone else to vomit all over his crime scene. “What about the Downtown Strangler?”

“They caught him last night,” he said.

“They _what_?” Jin demanded. “They, who?”

“Officers Sehun Oh and Junmyeon Kim, I think. They’re from your precinct, right?” Officer Mark Lee shook his head, making a clicking noise with his tongue. “They got him last night. Said the guy’s name was Lu Han or something like that.”

Jin’s head was spinning. Why hadn’t they known about this?

Actually, he knew why. They’d worked a lot of overtime that week. The night before, he’d passed out as soon as his ass hit the couch, and he’d slept straight through until morning. And Yoongi? He was busy maintaining his reputation as perpetual playboy of the NYPD.

Still, to think that two knuckleheads from his own squad had gone and solved the case of the Downtown Strangler while he was asleep…

“If they caught the Downtown Strangler,” Yoongi said, holding up a hand as if to somehow stop time for a moment, “who the hell is this?”

Their eyes all fell to the body beneath the sheet.

“Her name is Vanessa Simms,” said Officer Mark Lee. “Before he lost his breakfast, Officer Wang found her bag. Wallet, ID, everything was inside.”

“Was she a sex worker?” Yoongi asked.

“Beats the hell out of me,” said Officer Mark Lee. “But the profilers said that it wouldn’t matter. According to them, this wouldn’t be the work of the Downtown Strangler anyway.”

Jin tensed up and Yoongi saw it, catching himself just before he rolled his eyes.

“Profilers?” he spat bitterly. “What profilers?”

“The BAU,” he said, “from the FBI. They were here just a little bit ago. I think your lieutenant called them. Anyway, they’d looked over the Downtown Strangler case and that guy? Lu Han? He really did kill all three prostitutes. They said he had… what was it? Oh, yeah. Gender identity issues. All three of them were girls he’d seen while he was out clubbing. They disrespected him, emasculated him even. He raped and killed them to assert his dominance and prove he was a man. They said he probably had mommy issues, too. They said he was quick and clean. The sexual assault and the murder didn’t take very long, and he dumped the body and left.” Officer Mark Lee pointed down at the body. “Whoever did this took their time. It takes a lot of time to cut someone up like that.”

“Then why strangle her?” Jin asked quietly, his eyes narrowed. He was turning over stones in his head, trying to make sense of all the information he’d been given.

“If you ask me,” Officer Mark Lee went on, “I think it was a forensic countermeasure. Whoever did this didn’t know the Downtown Strangler had been caught. He was trying to make it look like the Stranger had struck again. Didn’t much count on him getting busted last night, I suppose. But raping and strangling a bunch of hookers is a far cry from torturing someone like this.” Officer Mark Lee took a breath and then smiled up at Seokjin. “My dream is to be a profiler someday, too.”

Jin ignored his charming ambition.

“You’re telling me,” he muttered, his teeth clenching so hard that it hurt his jaw, “that this isn’t the work of the Downtown Strangler, but of some _other_ serial killer in our jurisdiction?”

His fists were beginning to clench just like his teeth.

Yoongi sighed and said, “You’re going to want to step back.”

“Why?” asked Officer Mark Lee.

Another two seconds passed, and then…

“Goddamn it!” Seokjin roared, throwing his coffee cup like a fastball. It hit a nearby piece of construction equipment and exploded like a wet, brown firework.

“This will be a fun day,” Yoongi deadpanned. “He’s going to be lots of fun to be around.”

Jin was panting with the exertion of his own anger, his fists opening and closing at his sides. As if he didn’t have enough to worry about. As if he wasn’t already losing sleep over the East Side-Assassin and the Bronx Butcher and whatever the fuck was going on in Chelsea…

Back near the crowd, someone wailed. Yoongi, Seokjin and Officer Mark Lee all turned to see a middle-aged woman in a grey jacket being led under the boundaries. She was speaking with one of the senior detectives, though it seemed like _he_ was doing most of the talking and she was just screaming.

“Who’s that?” Jin asked.

“Victim’s mother,” said Officer Mark Lee.

Letting his shoulders sag with the weight of the cold, hard morning, Seokjin sighed.

As it turned out, he _could_ think of worse ways to start his day.

A lot worse. 

* * *

  
“If you keep grinding your teeth like that,” Yoongi said, “they’re going to fall out.”

“Good,” Seokjin said, unfazed, unblinking. “Think of how much time I’ll save when I can drink all my meals.”

“You _do_ like soup,” Yoongi agreed amicably.

“Win-win situation,” Seokjin mused quietly. His arms were folded over his chest as he sat on the corner of his desk. He was staring so intently at his evidence board that he was almost staring _through_ it. A crease had appeared between his eyes, the scary vein in his neck beginning to pop out as his brain struggled to make sense of what he saw.

The real Downtown Strangler, the one responsible for the murder and sexual assault of three prostitutes, was Lu Han. He’d been caught. (Impossibly so, Jin thought. How could Junmyeon and Sehun find the Downtown Strangler? They could barely find Burger King when they went out for lunch.) Whoever had killed Vanessa Simms was someone entirely different and, arguably, someone much more dangerous.

“Vanessa Simms wasn’t a prostitute,” Jin said.

“Correct,” Yoongi confirmed. “She was a college student.” Seokjin nodded slowly, processing. Sometimes he brain was quick and clear like an expensive computer with high-speed internet. Other days, it was like trudging along with a dial-up modem. When he fell silent again, Yoongi looked up at Jin and said, “You can’t connect dots that aren’t there.”

“They’re there,” he said. “I know they are.”

He had two evidence boards, both entirely covered in notes, samples and crime scene photos. The first had been a magnetic dry-erase board, one of the tall ones on wheels that you’d find in conference rooms. That one had been split in half, one side dedicated to the Downtown Strangler and the other to the East-Side Assassin.

Yoongi locked his hands behind his head and looked at the board. Whatever Jin thought he could see, Yoongi couldn’t.

“You shouldn’t be thinking about this,” Yoongi said.

“I know, I know,” Jin mumbled. “I should be thinking about the Bronx Butcher.”

Yoongi laughed incredulously, looking around like he thought someone else might have heard Jin and found him just as ridiculous as he did. It was one of those ‘can-you-believe-this-guy?’ looks, but nobody had been looking or listening and so Yoongi just blinked through his own disbelief.

“No, Jin,” he sighed, shaking his head. “The East-Side Assassin. _That_ is who you’re supposed to be thinking about.” Jin narrowed his eyes, shot Yoongi a hard glare over his shoulder and then went back to what he’d been doing – staring and muttering. Grunting, Yoongi stood up and came around the side of Jin’s desk. “Let me break it down for you, buddy.” He pointed to the first board, gesturing to the Downtown Strangler’s half. “This can all go in the trash. They caught him. He’s gone now.”

“Only he isn’t,” Jin spat, “because someone killed Vanessa Simms.”

“Only she isn’t our problem,” Yoongi countered, “and neither is her killer.” Ignoring the swears that Jin was hurling in his direction, Yoongi quickly and quietly removed all of the Downtown Strangler’s information from the board and stacked it neatly on the corner of Jin’s desk. Then, he turned to the second board. Though the urge to do so made his fingers itch, he knew better than to touch this one.

This board was Seokjin’s baby.

“Don’t you dare,” Jin warned, following Yoongi’s eyes to the board. But Yoongi shoved his hands in his pockets, fighting the temptation.

“The Bronx Butcher,” he said, “is not our problem.”

Jin bit the inside of his cheek.

The second board, bigger and messier than the first, had been entirely devoted to the Bronx Butcher.

(Yoongi hated that they give serial killers nicknames like that, hated that the media was so desperate to sell stories that they’d proudly memorialize and sensationalize monsters. But maybe he understood it. They were the boogeymen of their realities, the ghouls that roamed the city streets, the things that went bump in the night. Maybe giving them names made it easier to swallow somehow. Maybe knowing your enemy made it possible to keep on living even though you were scared shitless. Maybe.)

Jin knew that he was on thin ice.

There were three (or now, maybe, four – who the fuck knew?) active serial killers walking around New York City. The East-Side Assassin was, aptly, leaving bodies all over the Upper East Side. The Downtown Strangler might have been caught, but who knew how long it was until this new, mysterious player claimed another victim? Mutilated bodies, all politically motivated, had been found in Chelsea.

And then there was the Bronx Butcher.

And _nobody_ racked up body counts quite like the Bronx Butcher.

The Bronx Butcher had more victims than the East-Side Assassin and the Downtown Strangler _combined_ , and he had a flare for the dramatic. He ripped bodies apart, removed organs and kept them as trophies, left behind elaborate paintings done entirely in the victim’s blood.

He was barbaric but there was something about him that fascinated Seokjin, something artistic, even poetic. There was something that set him apart from the other killers, something that made him different, something that made him special.

Seokjin had, in recent months, become a little obsessed with it.

The problem, though, was that he wasn’t in their jurisdiction.

Seokjin was a Manhattan detective. The Bronx Butcher, of course, cut people up in the Bronx.

There was, however, what Seokjin considered to be a loophole – three of the Bronx Butcher’s victims had been found in Manhattan. It wasn’t much, especially considering the number of bodies he’d left in the Bronx was nearly fifteen, but it was all that Jin had.

If uncaught, the Bronx Butcher was on his way to becoming one of the most prolific serial killers in the country’s history. Of course it was horrible and scary and bad that there were so many active killers trolling the city, but the Bronx Butcher was the worst by a mile. The other three couldn’t _dream_ of carrying out the type of murders that he appeared to commit with such ease.

And yet, he’d been barred from launching an all-out investigation. Sure, each time a victim magically appeared in his jurisdiction, he’d been granted access but those bodies had come few and far between. What he needed was to collaborate with the Bronx PD. He needed to visit all the crime scenes, examine all the evidence, look into victimology, get inside the Bronx Butcher’s head.

But he couldn’t.

It wasn’t his jurisdiction.

He’d worked his ass off to find justice for the three victims he’d been given, but each time, he hit a wall.

It had been three months since the last time the Butcher had left a body in Manhattan. Meanwhile, he’d _just_ left a teenage boy completely eviscerated on the steps of a high school in the Bronx. He’d even taken his stomach as a keepsake.

But could Jin check it out? Could he call the lead detective in the Bronx and ask if he had any new leads? Could he visit the crime scene and work backwards the way he liked to do?

No. Of course not. Because that was the Bronx and this was Manhattan and all anyone here cared about was the East-Side Assassin.

Begrudgingly, Jin glanced up at the evidence board.

The East-Side Assassin had killed six women so far, all wealthy, white socialites from the Upper East Side. Days before each murder, witnesses saw the victims engage in some sort of altercation with a service worker. One woman had screamed at a waitress over poor service, another had made a scene about a homeless man eating in the same restaurant as her. So far, these seemed like a cross between vigilantism and revenge killings. Someone saw privileged women abusing those they saw as less-than and stepped in to dole out a punishment that fit the crime.

Each victim had been tortured and each had died from strangulation. (That, Yoongi had remarked once, seemed to be a very popular homicide method those days.)

It wasn’t that Seokjin didn’t care. It was his _job_ to care. It was just that the East-Side Assassin wasn’t in the same weight class as the Bronx Butcher. The Assassin? He was easy. He hated women. Specifically, he hated wealthy women. He probably had some mommy issues, probably had been mistreated by a rich woman in his formative years, and he was lashing out at strangers because he couldn’t go after his _real_ target.

The fact that he was only killing women who he felt deserved it meant that he had some semblance of a conscience and he was probably well-adjusted enough to hold down a job and a social life. His friends and coworkers would have no idea that he tortured women and, frankly, he probably lived a completely normal existence until the moment he saw a woman in designer clothes screaming at a janitor.

Once he’d been set off, once someone had triggered his anger, he became fixated. Probably disappeared from work for a few days (probably had a built-in excuse, too, to reason away these absences to those who knew him) and began the hunt. From there, he’d abduct, torture, kill and dispose of his victim and then jump right back into his other, normal life.

Seokjin had figured him out from the second victim (who needed profilers anyway?) and he was bored. Eventually, the Assassin would make a mistake and they’d catch him. He’d leave DNA behind, or a fingerprint, or one of his friends would realize that his lies about going fishing or visiting his mother didn’t add up, and they’d catch him.

For now, they had no leads to chase.

(And, no, it wasn’t that Jin thought these victims _deserved_ it. Sure, they probably shouldn’t have been so unashamedly nasty to people in public but they didn’t deserve it. They weren’t entirely innocent but they hadn’t deserved what they’d gotten. But what about the Butcher’s victims? There was no pattern there, no connections. He killed men, women, teenagers. He crossed race, gender, social class and sexuality lines and killed with abandon. What had the stomach-less teenager left sprawled out on the steps of his high school done? He certainly hadn’t screamed racial slurs at a janitor or threatened to call the cops on a bum trying to eat a burger. Shouldn’t _he_ be their priority?)

“I know that,” Jin said bitterly. He was clenching his fists so tight that his nails threatened to pierce the skin of his palm.

Sighing because he knew the look on Jin’s face and he knew what it meant, Yoongi said, “I’m sorry, buddy. I know that case eats at you but you’ve got to let it go. There’s nothing we can do. Not now. Not unless the Butcher drops another body into our laps. For now, we need to focus on the Assassin. They caught the Strangler. Maybe there’s another serial walking around, or maybe it’s just a coincidence and strangulation is just the flavor-of-the-month. I don’t know. What I _do_ know is the Assassin is a ticking time bomb, just waiting for another white yuppie to shout at a poor person. And you know white yuppies, Seokjin. They _always_ shout at poor people. Whether you like it or not, the East-Side Assassin? That’s our burden. Let the Bronx PD deal with the Butcher and let us find yuppie-killer.”

Seokjin’s smile was sad, but it was a smile. Yoongi, in all his wisdom and glory, had this unmatched ability to break through the tension and cut right to the heart of Jin’s problems. Even now, when it was literally a matter of life and death, Yoongi made it all feel okay.

Jin opened his mouth to say something nice, to thank Yoongi and tell him that he felt better, but the familiar sound of a squeaky office door cut through the room. All the hustle and bustle of the department seemed to stop, every busy officer falling silent as soon as the boss showed her head.

“Seokjin,” came a female voice, somehow smooth and sharp simultaneously. “Can I see you?”

Jin shut his mouth so quickly, it felt like his teeth really _would_ break.

He glanced over his shoulder and saw Lieutenant Hani Ahn staring back at him. She was dressed entirely in blue, her new, shorter haircut making her look even less approachable than she did before, if that was even possible.

“Yeah,” he gritted. “Sure thing.”

She nodded once and retreated into her office. As soon the door clicked shut, the air of the squad room returned to normal, buzzing with its usual hum.

“Oh boy,” Yoongi said, sighing heavily as he came back around his desk and fell into his chair. “I _wonder_ what that’s about.”

Seokjin took a deep breath and stood up, straighten his shirt and his back before turning on the heal of his boot and heading for her office.

This wouldn’t be fun.

On a _good_ day, Lieutenant Ahn wasn’t Seokjin’s biggest fan. But on a day when a probable new serial killer had just popped up and dumped a body smack dab in the middle of their jurisdiction _and_ Jin was still hung up on the Butcher?

He took another breath as his hand touched the doorknob, flinching slightly as he twisted it.

“Ma’am?” he asked, bowing his head.

With tan skin and sharp cheekbones, Lieutenant Ahn would've been gorgeous if she wasn't such a stone-cold ball-buster. It didn't help that Jin was her least favorite child, the stubborn, impulsive prodigal son who took the longest and hardest route possible on his way to doing the right thing. Jin was sure that, if given any sort of opportunity, Hani would vote him out of the precinct Survivor-style and replace him with someone who didn't spend so much of his time in the penalty box.

“Take a seat, Seokjin,” she said. She was sitting at her desk, her eyes pointed down inside a folder, and she didn’t bother looking up as Jin made his way to an empty chair. After fifteen seconds had passed in silence, Lieutenant Ahn said, “What do you make of this?”

Seokjin wasn’t sure what _this_ was.

“Ma’am?”

“The body that was found today,” she said, leaning back in her seat and folding her hands over her stomach. “It wasn’t the Downtown Strangler. Not the right victim, not the right MO. Do you think we should look at this as another potential serial, or something else, something random?”

Holding back a sigh, Seokjin inched to the edge of his chair and scratched the back of his neck.

“I think it’s too early to tell,” he answered honestly. “We need to look into the type of person Vanessa Simms was. We need to see if she had any enemies, any habits, any debts. Strangulation isn’t exactly an uncommon way to kill somebody so it could just be a coincidence. I wouldn’t jump to any conclusions just yet.”

Hani nodded slowly as she listened to Seokjin speak, then she closed the folder on her desk and said, “Good. That leaves you completely undistracted to catch the East-Side Assassin, then. I’ll stick some officers on the Vanessa Simms case. You and Detective Min can get back to work, maybe head uptown and follow-up on some old leads, see if anything has changed.”

Seokjin swallowed hard, unable to help the uncomfortable way he shifted in his seat.

“With all due respect, ma’am,” he began uneasily, “I was really hoping to give Sungyeol Lee a call.”

Lieutenant Ahn gave him a hard look, one of her perfectly-trimmed eyebrows arching slightly as she examined him.

“And who exactly is Sungyeol Lee?”

“He’s the lead detective in the Bronx who’s working the–”

She raised one hand, effectively shutting him up and putting an end to the tired tirade she’d heard so many times before. She knew exactly what he was going to say and she didn’t want to hear it. Not today.

“Don’t start, Detective Kim,” she said, the beginnings of a headache starting to throb between her eyes. “We’ve been over this. We’ve been over this several times, in fact. You have your assignment. You know what you’re supposed to be doing.”

“I just don’t understand how the East-Side Assassin outranks the Butcher,” he blurted, regretting it as soon as he said it. He saw the look in her eyes and knew very well. It was the one where she was trying to decide whether it was worth firing him or if she should just hit him with her stapler, and Jin decided to push his luck. He was likely already going to be in trouble. What was one more demerit? “The Butcher dumped a body yesterday. A _kid_. He was sixteen. Wouldn’t my skills be better put to use there? The Assassin hasn’t struck in a while and–”

“And what?” Lieutenant Ahn laughed humorlessly, incredulously. “And you think he’s just done now? You think six is his lucky number and now he’s ready to quit?” She shook her head, her voice growing louder and her tone beginning to sharpen. “And you think that, instead of putting two of my best detectives on _that_ case, I should let you go run around the Bronx, completely out of or jurisdiction, and step on the toes of cops who’ve lost thirteen people and now a teenager?”

It was silent then. Seokjin’s cheeks were red. He felt like a kid getting scolded by the principal.

“I don’t mean any disrespect,” he said somewhat meekly. “Not to you, not to the Assassin’s victims. But what about Devynn Kirkland? What about Taylor Litchfield and Evan Brass?”

“You don’t need to remind me of the Butcher’s Manhattan victims, Seokjin,” Lieutenant Ahn said shortly. “I know their names. I was at the funerals, too.” She paused for a minute, visibly upset, and then continued with a renewed anger burning in her eyes and rumbling in her throat. “But in case you’ve forgotten what you learned in kindergarten, thirteen is greater than three. The Butcher may not be outranked but _we_ are. It is the Bronx’s case and unless the Butcher starts dropping bodies on the Upper East Side, I don’t want to hear shit else about it. Do you understand me, Seokjin? I get that the Butcher is the Zodiac Killer of our time and you want to be the big, tough badass detective who brings him in, but I’m not letting your silly ego and your sillier obsession interfere with an investigation. 1PP and the mayor are breathing down my neck about the East-Side Assassin. This city can’t survive if every rich white person is terrified to go outside. This city’s economy depends on them going out and spending like the world is ending. But if they think the world really _is_ ending, we’re all fucked. Do you get that? So shut the fuck up about the Butcher and go catch the East-Side Assassin before I replace you with someone who will.”

She’d shouted those last few sentences and the sound of her voice echoed off the office walls and the inside of Seokjin’s head. His cheeks were flushed now, hopelessly so, and he couldn’t find it in him to look Lieutenant Ahn in the eye. This was a man who’d seen all sorts of atrocities in his ten years on the force and he couldn’t even face his petite lady-boss.

“It’s not an obsession,” he said finally, his voice small. “It’s a passion.”

Frustrated and no longer interested in this conversation, Lieutenant Ahn began straightening up the papers on her desk.

“You, Detective, are walking a very thin line between passion and insubordination.”

“So we’re not looking into it at all? That’s it? We’re done with the Butcher?”

“ _We’re_ not,” she said. “ _You_ are. I’ve been in contact with the FBI. BAU profilers are in town and they’ll be splitting their time between us and the Bronx PD. They will help us find the Butcher and help us determine whether or not this new killer is a realistic threat.”

Seokjin gaped at her.

“So why did you even bother asking me?” he asked, obviously and unreasonably offended.

“Because you’re a good cop and I value your opinion,” she said. “But the profilers have skills and intel that you don’t, Seokjin. I know you have some weird axe to grind with the BAU but you’ll be answering to them on the East-Side Assassin case, too, if you don’t buck up and get some answers. Is that understood?”

Seokjin could taste bile burning in his throat.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said through gritted teeth. Jealousy, anger and resentment burned in the pit of his stomach, rough and acidic. He’d known his day was going to suck but this was something else. Being formally taken off the Butcher case _and_ being asked to play second-fiddle to a bunch of profilers?

Maybe he should’ve just stayed in bed.

When Jin didn’t move, and when it was clear to Hani that he was too busy brooding and wallowing in his own self-pity to take a hint, she said, “Please shut the door on your way out.”

Seokjin walked out of Lieutenant Ahn’s office like a puppy who’d just been kicked. He tried to hide it, tried to walk tall and hold his chin up, but Yoongi saw right through it. Seokjin had always been considerably transparent with his emotions, even if he thought he was some sort of closed book with a lock and key.

As Seokjin returned to his desk and dropped into his chair with a dramatic huff, Yoongi smiled. Standing, he put his hand on Jin’s shoulder and said, “Come on, Let me buy you lunch.”

* * *

   
“The food here sucks,” Jin said, twirling several strands of spaghetti around a water-spotted fork. “Why do we always come here?”

Yoongi shrugged, his mouth full of fries.

“The food sucks but it’s good. It’s a complicated mixture of good and suck. Some Italian food is like that.”

Jin thought calling Franchetti’s Italian food was like calling Taco Bell authentic Mexican but since Yoongi was footing the bill, he let it go. It was a popular hangout for cops and the choice of décor only lived to further that connection. Jin didn’t know what came first – the NYPD murals on the wall or all the cops in the booths. Either way, the boys in blue always got a discount and the owner lived with the comfortable knowledge that he’d likely never be held up at gunpoint. It was, at the very least, a successful example of a symbiotic relationship.

It was the lunch rush, and a sea of blue uniforms stretched all across the dining room. The smell of garlic and tomato sauce was strong and the atmosphere was electric. With all the bodies being dumped around the city, there was a lot to talk about.

“Do you ever miss sex crimes?” Jin asked, leaning back in his chair as he looked around the room. “On days like these, I mean, when death is just, like, in the air? Do you ever miss _live_ victims?”

Yoongi shrugged and reached for the ketchup. He’d already consumed a third of the bottle and Seokjin wondered if he could even taste the food underneath.

“They weren’t always live victims,” Yoongi said. He’d never been one to get nostalgic. He’d worked sex crimes for seven years before transferring to homicide. That was where he’d met Seokjin. They were paired up when Seokjin’s original partner retired and the rest was history. “But I guess I miss it. It’s sort of like asking somebody a bad would-you-rather. Would you rather be deaf or blind? Would you rather starve to death or bleed to death? Would you rather work a case with a dead five-year-old, or a five-year-old that’s been raped?” He shrugged his shoulders. “Violent crime is violent crime. For what it’s worth, though, I like you more than my last partner.”

Seokjin snorted and said, “Really?”

“Absolutely,” he said. “You never make me drive.”

They worked well together. They were opposites, but the kind of opposites that made each other stronger. Jin was brooding and intense. He had trouble hiding his cynicism, had trouble seeing beyond the scope of his personal reality. His line of work had tainted his view of the world, irreparably darkening the way he saw things, the way he saw people.

It wasn’t that Yoongi was naïve. He’d seen enough heinous crimes to last a lifetime, encountered enough violated, traumatized victims to carry with him through several eternities. But it didn’t faze him the way it fazed Jin. If anything, it had the opposite effect. It made him appreciate what little good he saw in the world. He was charming, talkative, someone who could be friends with anyone. And as it stood, he’d thrown significantly less coffee cups than his partner.

Maybe that was why they’d gotten so many commendations. Maybe that was why Lieutenant Ahn considered them to be her best detectives. Before this boom of serial killers had taken over New York City like a thick, noxious cloud, they’d been the go-to guys on every tough assignment. Nobody cracked the case quite like Detectives Kim and Min. (It didn't do much to change Hani's personal opinion of Jin but at least she knew she could trust him to solve a case and not get blown up in the process.)

But maybe those days were gone just like the safety and peace of mind of Manhattan.

“Oh, no,” Yoongi said, and his quiet, grated tone was enough to pull Seokjin from his thoughts.

“What?”

Yoongi, who was seated across from Seokjin, nodded his chin towards the door.

“We’ve got company.”

Seokjin looked over his shoulder just in time to see award-less journalist Jongdae Kim approaching.

“Hi, guys,” Jongdae greeted brightly. “How are my favorite detectives?” Their resounding groan was simultaneous. “Oh, don’t be like that,” Jongdae said. As soon as he was close enough, he pointed to Yoongi’s plate. “Mind I I swipe some fries? I skipped breakfast.” Not waiting for a response, Jongdae lifted three wedges from Yoongi’s pile and shoved them into his mouth.

Yoongi glared up at him.

“What’s stopping me from putting this guy through that window over there?” he asked Jin.

“Smartphones,” he said. “Police brutality ain’t what it used to be.”

Jongdae snorted.

While he loudly chewed up Yoongi’s fries, Seokjin looked him up and down. That day, he wore tight green pants and a white button-up shirt. On his head, covering a mop of curly brown hair, he wore an honest-to-goodness newsboy cap.

“Jongdae,” Seokjin sighed, “your column is online. You don’t even have a physical _paper_. Why do you dress like it’s 1940?”

“Yeah,” said Yoongi, snatching his plate away so that it was out of Jongdae’s reach. “Don’t you have a corner you should be standing on? Extra, extra! Read all about it and go away.”

Jongdae laughed again. No matter how much they teased and belittled him, Jongdae always laughed. Seokjin couldn’t tell if he loved or hated that about him. (And Seokjin hated just about _all_ the journalists of the city, so the fact that he had to consider it at all meant that he probably liked the chatty son-of-a-bitch.)

“I’m not even here for you,” he said. “I’m here for your buddies.”

“We don’t have any buddies,” said Seokjin.

“Officers Oh and Kim,” Jongdae amended, nodding his chin to the back of the dining room. Sehun and Junmyeon were there, laughing as they ate their garlic bread. “They caught the Downtown Strangler and people do, in fact, want to read all about it.”

“Good,” Yoongi hissed. “Go take _their_ fries.”

Snorting, Jongdae nodded and began to walk away, but then he stopped.

“Hey,” he said. “Did you guys hear about Justitia’s Prophet?”

“Is that one of those weird indie bands you like?” Yoongi asked and Jongdae laughed again.

“Boy, you guys are really out of the loop.” He held up one finger, signaling for them to wait, and then began rifling through his messenger bag. When he found what he was looking for – a newspaper, apparently – he slammed it down on the table, narrowly missing Jin’s plate of pasta. “Read it and weep, my dudes.”

Yoongi read the headline aloud.

“Justitia’s Prophet claims responsibility for five dead in art district,” he said, then he looked expectantly to Jongdae. “Fill in the blanks, paperboy.”

Sighing and taking back his newspaper, Jongdae explained: “You know all those bodies in the art district? The ones with poems attached? The ones that the mayor called ‘politically-motivated’? They finally have a guy responsible.”

“Someone caught him?” Seokjin asked.

“Not exactly,” Jongdae said uneasily. “He just claimed responsibility. Named himself, too. He sent a letter to the New York Times. Their story breaks tomorrow.” He gestured with the paper still in his hands. “This is more-or-less a gossip rag but they have a source that leaked the letter early. My story on him will be up at midnight. Be sure to check it out.” He threw a wink at Seokjin and Yoongi, then reached for more fries. Yoongi slapped his hand away and Jongdae threw his head back and laughed. With that, he headed back towards Junmyeon and Sehun.

“The East-Side Assassin,” Yoongi said blankly, “the Bronx Butcher, the new strangler, and now Justitia’s Prophet.” He wiped his mouth with his napkin and threw it down onto his plate, his appetite suddenly gone. “Seokjin, does New York City have _four_ serial killers right now?”

Jin didn’t hear his question. He was lost in thought, trying to remember what he knew about Justitia’s Prophet.

To his knowledge, the Prophet only had five bodies, all left in Chelsea. All five victims had been men, each killed by a single gunshot wound to the head, and each body had been elaborately staged after death and left in public places. Each had been left with a sign around his neck, too, each sign bearing a poem that alluded to a different social problem in the city. The poems had been about homelessness, racism, police brutality, sexual assault and healthcare, in that order.

That was about all Jin knew. He hadn’t been assigned that case and, as such, didn’t know the details. The fact that this guy had claimed responsibility, contacted the New York Times _and_ named himself, though, was notable. That was next-level ballsy and Jin couldn’t think of any other serial killer who’d done anything like it before.

“There’s an EMT at my apartment,” Yoongi said, breaking both the silence and the tension. “Her name is Junghwa. She was there when I left this morning and she just sent me a Snapchat. She’s still there. I figured, like most one-night stands, she would have, you know, gone home. But she’s still there.” He cleared his throat. “What should I do?”

“Firstly,” Jin began, “you should probably stop sleeping with paramedics.”

Yoongi snorted in disbelief and rolled his eyes.

“Realistic suggestions only, please,” he huffed and then they both broke into laughter, probably laughing harder than the situation allowed just because they needed it. They laughed and laughed and laughed and then Yoongi’s phone rang.

“It’s probably Junghwa,” he said, and they both laughed some more.

But then Yoongi answered it, listened for a few seconds, and the laughter stopped just as abruptly as it began. He said a few words, thanked the caller and then hung up. Sighing, he reached into his wallet, pulled out some cash and threw it onto the table.

“What is it?” Seokjin asked.

Yoongi sighed again, stood up and shook his head.

“Time to go,” he said. “The Bronx Butcher just struck again.”

Seokjin’s heart leapt into his throat.

“No,” he said. “Where this time? Another school in the Bronx? A church like last month?”

Yoongi just kept shaking his head.

“Three blocks from here,” he said, seemingly unable to believe the words coming from his mouth. He looked down at Seokjin and said, “You got your wish, kid. The Butcher is back in Manhattan and we’ve just been assigned to the case.”


	2. Chapter 2

Christiana King. That was the name on her driver’s license.

It had already been added to the box. There was no going back now.

There were six licenses already in the box. This would be lucky number seven.

He’d seen her on his Sunday morning run. He preferred going on runs in the city. The suburbs were nice enough and smelled a lot better than the city, but there was something Chanyeol Park enjoyed about the challenge of jogging through Manhattan. There were people to dodge, cars to contend with, obstacles on the sidewalks. Anybody could run on the smooth, well-maintained paths of Flower Hill but taking it directly to the heart of the city? That was a challenge.

Besides, Chanyeol liked the looks he got. He was tall, handsome, muscular, aloof. Women stared at him, lustful. Men stared at him, envious. The attention made him run faster. Historically, a nice stroke of his ego had always been the best motivator.  

It was cold that day – it had been cold lately. Growing up, Chanyeol hadn’t cared for the cold. He’d been a scrawny kid, not exactly sickly but definitely not the active, robust, apple-cheeked kid who played football and rode bikes when the weather got cold. He was prone to colds, prone to injuries. Until 10th grade, he’d been simultaneously the tallest and the skinniest kid in class. It wasn’t until he’d turned sixteen that he quit feeling sorry for himself and hit the gym.

Now he was strong. Now he was attractive. Now he was capable.

Maybe he’d always been capable. In a lot of ways, money equaled capability. Chanyeol had grown up wealthy. Not just wealthy. Rich, really. He’d been filthy stinking rich. Still was. Some of that was a trust fund but the rest was money that he’d earned himself. He’d gone to school for marketing and nabbed a high-paying job in advertising right out of college. The power of networking and an impressive GPA, he figured. That and the CEO knew his mother.

He’d been thinking about all this as he ran that day, the cold biting at his ears, and when he thought of his mother, his fists clenched tightly at his sides.

Mommy dearest.

He thought of her and ran faster, the tight burn in his chest a reminder that he was doing something right. He grimaced, just for a second, and smiled.

Maybe he was a masochist.

Maybe he liked pain even more than he thought.

He’d been jogging down 5th Avenue at the time. He liked 5th Avenue, liked people-watching there. What was that phrase his professor liked to use? A target-rich environment.

He’d been running hard, totally in the zone, loud rap music blasting in his ears, adrenaline coursing through his veins.

And that was when he saw her.

She didn’t see him, at least not at first. She was busy screaming. Chanyeol could tell everything he needed to know about her just from what she had on – big fur coat, tight designer jeans, high-heeled boots that made no real sense given the weather and the conditions of the sidewalk. The bag she held on the crook of her arm cost more than most people made in a week, and Chanyeol knew that with a good deal of certainty since his mother was biased towards that particular brand.

He hadn’t seen the beginning of the altercation, having been distracted by his workout, but he caught more than enough of the latter half to help him make up his mind. The woman, blonde and Botoxed, was screaming so loudly that other people had stopped to watch. And the recipient of her anger? A middle-aged Hispanic woman with a baby in her arms and a school-aged child holding her hand.

The blonde – Chanyeol now knew her as Christiana – was in this woman’s face, fuming and spitting and carrying on. Again, Chanyeol had missed the first act but from the context, he pieced it together. The Hispanic woman had been walking down the sidewalk at the same time as Christiana. Somehow, they’d bumped into each other, the Hispanic woman spilling her bodega coffee onto Christiana’s blouse.

Chanyeol hadn’t seen it at first. He’d been too far away, too preoccupied. Plus, Christiana’s jacket had been covering it. But, lo and behold, there was a wet, brown stain on the front of her shirt. And so explained the screaming.

The blonde’s racially charged, expletive-laced tirade was directed mostly at the mother but that didn’t stop her from letting a few child-aimed insults fly.

She called her a Mexican. She called her a spick. She insulted her face and her clothes and her shoes. She called her kids illegals before calling them anchor babies. She demanded that this woman reimburse her for the shirt, demanded that her kids work it off in “some sweatshop” and then told all of them to go back where they came from.

Chanyeol took deep, even breaths despite the fact that his fingers were twitching at his sides and a knot of tension was forming in the center of his back.

People had stopped what they were doing so that they could watch this atrocity. Some were filming it on their phones. Some were whispering to each other, appalled. But none of them were _doing_ anything about it.

He took another deep breath, trying to remind himself that there was nothing he could do about them. People were inherently weak. It was in their DNA. They were stupid and weak, slaves to anything remotely salacious, but always had and always _would_ remain completely and utterly spineless.

Such was the nature of humanity.

_You can’t save the world, Chanyeol. You can’t change people. Focus on what you_ can _do and leave out all the rest._

Another deep breath and he refocused himself. He turned his attention to the Hispanic woman.

She didn’t have money. Like with Christiana, Chanyeol could tell a lot just by looking at her clothes. His mother always said that clothes made the man, and since then, Chanyeol had learned how to read people’s visage, mentally leafing through each article of clothing like pages in a book.

The three of them were wearing K-Mart clothes, the type of stuff you’d see in the bargain bin. Solid colors, uneven stitching, plastic zippers. The older child, a little girl, had a dirty pink jacket and stretch pants that were too thin for the weather. The baby was bundled in blankets, probably because its clothes were insufficient for the low temperature. Mom wore a grey, zip-up hoodie, ill-fitting jeans and sneakers that were so worn, they were holey and frayed.

This woman, Christiana, likely had more money in her bank account than this family would ever see in their entire lives and she was still willing to humiliate them over one minor and entirely accidental inconvenience.

The Hispanic woman was close to tears. More than once, she tried to walk away, pulling her young daughter with her, but Christiana blocked her path.

She was a spoiled woman, cruel and entitled. Her capacity for empathy was low, as was her self-image, and she didn’t care if other people witnessed her brutality. She was shameless. If anything, she probably _liked_ the fact that people were staring. In her deluded mind, they agreed with her. They were applauding her. They were proud of her for doing what they couldn’t.

That wasn’t true, of course. They were disgusted by her, embarrassed for her, wounded on behalf of the woman who couldn’t speak up to defend herself or her children. They were taking videos so that they could vilify her later, memorializing this moment so that they could upload it to Facebook and said, “Can you believe this loud-mouth bigot?”

But women like Christiana always thought that they were in the right.

Chanyeol should know – he was raised by one.

He remembered the way the mother treated the help. She scolded them, chastised them, humiliated them. In front of her friends, in front of their kids, in front of Chanyeol. It didn’t matter who was around. She shouted at them, belittled them, threatened to call Immigration. On more than one occasion, she hit them, threw things. Chanyeol had seen his favorite employee, a maid named Lupe, cry dozens of times at the hands of his mother.

What could he do? He was young, weak, helpless against his mommy. When Chanyeol found Lupe crying in the guest bathroom, he sat with her and held her hand. Lupe would stroke his hair and say something in Spanish. He didn’t know what it meant but he knew it made both of them feel better. He liked Lupe. She was gentle, generous. She cared about him.

One day, when Chanyeol was twelve, he came home and asked his mom where Lupe was. He’d been assigned a project in Spanish class and he needed help. It was true that most of the staff spoke Spanish but no one was as helpful as Lupe. No one cared as much about Chanyeol’s grade or about nurturing his amateur grasp on the language.

“She’s gone,” his mother said, not looking up from the paper. “She was stealing again. I just know she was. Anyway, I called Immigration and they have her now.”

Chanyeol went pale. He felt sick. Lupe had three kids and a husband on disability. She’d never stolen. Not once. She was a person with thoughts and feelings and goals and dreams and now she was gone. Just like that. His mother didn’t care. Not one bit.

They never spoke of Lupe again.

Now, Chanyeol had to pick his battles. The Hispanic woman and her children had finally broken free of the cruel woman’s clutches. Someone who’d been standing behind Christiana, a friend, maybe, or a shopping buddy, had finally intervened. The Hispanic family was slinking away, their tails between their legs, tears beginning to stream down mom’s face.

Chanyeol wanted to follow them, wanted to find out where Mom worked so that he could leave an anonymous donation that would help soften the blow of that horrible woman’s horrible words. But he couldn’t. He had to stay focused. As they neared the corner, Chanyeol noticed that the little girl was carrying a backpack. It had the name of her elementary school on it.

It was a longshot but Chanyeol figured it was worth a try. Pulling his phone from his jacket pocket, he snapped a few pictures of the girl and her mom. He was just one of a dozen people with their phones out so nobody really noticed. But with the combination of a school name and a photo, maybe his hacker friend Baekhyun could find out who the little girl was. Through school and DMV records, maybe he could even find out where the mother worked.

But Christiana was on the move, now, which meant Chanyeol needed to be, too.

It was pure luck that he’d been on a run, but now he had a perfectly reasonable explanation for why he was darting down the street. These things were a lot harder to maintain when he was dressed for work or buying groceries.

Maybe seven really was his lucky number.

He did his usual surveillance, using the standard buzz of Manhattan as a cover. Christiana was so wrapped up in herself that she didn’t even _think_ about checking her surroundings. If she had, she would’ve noticed a tall, handsome man in active wear following her for twelve blocks.

But that was not the case.

In Chanyeol’s experience, that was never the case. Women he was after, women like Christiana, made the game all-too-easy by being too caught up in their own bullshit to take a look around every once in a while. It almost took the fun out of the hunt.

Almost.

She lived in a luxury apartment on the Upper East Side, doorman and all. That was fine. Chanyeol didn’t need to know which apartment was hers (and if he did, it really wouldn’t be all that hard to figure out). He just needed to know her schedule. That, too, was a piece of cake.

To Chanyeol, though, everything was a piece of cake. That was the way it had always been.

School? Easy. Sports? Easy. Work? Easy. Killing? Easy.

His life was easy. If you took his wicked witch mother out of the equation, nearly every facet of his life had been easy. Now, as a charming, attractive man, the good times just kept rolling. With the right thinking, Chanyeol could get just about anything he ever wanted.

It would be very easy to charm information out of the doorman. He’d done it before but the last time he had, the police had questioned the guy. Lucky for Chanyeol, the man was old and couldn’t remember what Chanyeol looked like. (“He had big ears,” was the only thing he’d told the cops and Chanyeol had laughed when he read it in the paper. His biggest weakness, now and forever. All the money in the world and six dead women under his belt and he still couldn’t escape his big ass ears.)

It didn’t seem worth the risk that day. It was Sunday and if Chanyeol played his cards right, he could blow off work for the next few days without raising any questions. That would allow him the freedom to stake out Christiana’s apartment and, therefore, learn her schedule. A coffee shop across the street would provide a near perfect hideout. He’d bring his computer, sit by the window and pretend to be working on some hipster screenplay, all the while watching the door and planning his next move.

It took even less time than he expected. This woman was a creature of habit. Coffee with friends at nine, a run at eleven, home by twelve-thirty, back out to go he-didn’t-care-where a little after two, then home for the night by five-fifteen.

It would be so easy that it almost wouldn’t be fun.

Almost.

He made his move on Wednesday morning. Of course, he had to abandon his post at East Side Java and go back to his home in Tribeca to get his car. That was always the hard part. In some cases, the _only_ hard part. Chanyeol lived in a brownstone and parked on the street right outside his building. Getting girls from the car to the house without incident, while only a few-foot journey, always made his heart beat out of his chest.

And he liked it.

There were a few ways that he could circumvent those issues. One would be to incapacitate these women. He could knock them out, employ a little handy, dandy chloroform. But that idea came with struggles of its own. He’d need to carry them from his car to his front door and that in itself would be next to impossible. He could just charm the pants off of them, seduce them and bring them back to his place, but that would require him to actually get near these women, _befriend_ them, treat them like people, and he wasn’t willing to do that.

No, his way was easier. Threats were simpler. He owned a knife (several, in fact) and a gun and he knew his way around dark alleys.

Once he knew her jogging route, it was child’s play. He’d park his car, pocket his pocketknife and bide his time until she came around the corner. He’d use some ploy to distract her, yelling for help or asking her for the time or telling her she dropped her keys, and he’d draw her just out of sight from the street.

Then he showed her his weapon and the real fun began.

The last six times he’d done this, the women had complied quietly, all of them expecting a robbery or a sexual assault, assuming that they’d be able to submit temporarily and walk away with their lives. But Chanyeol didn’t need them for money _or_ sex. He did just fine in both of those departments all on his own.

Christiana followed the same formula as all the others. She raised her hands defensively, showing her willingness to comply, and, with wide eyes and a shaky voice, she asked what he wanted. Smirking, he told her to get in the car. There, he bound her wrist with zip ties and buckled her in the passenger’s seat. Traffic cops had really been buckling down lately and it wouldn’t much help him to get a ticket on the way back to Tribeca.

“If you scream,” he said, waving the knife dramatically before her eyes, “I’ll kill you. If you try to draw attention to anyone on the street while we drive, I’ll kill you. If you try anything while driving, I’ll kill you. If you say a word from now until we arrive at our destination, I’ll kill you. You get it?”

Frantic, the woman nodded.

Chanyeol sighed contentedly. The fear on her face, the humiliation, the helplessness, it reminded him of the Hispanic woman and her children. Christiana had victimized them for no real reason, stripping them of their power, of their dignity because she felt she was somehow above them. And now he would do the same to her.

All was fair in love and retribution. All in a day's work to make the universe a little more balanced.

The ride home to Tribeca was uneventful, Christiana falsely concluding that her compliance and submission would somehow spare her life.

Chanyeol parked in his usual spot and then pulled his knife again. Christiana recoiled and whimpered but didn’t scream. He wasn’t going to stab her, anyway. Using the tip of the blade to cut off the zip-ties, he said, “Now you’re going to walk inside, quickly and quietly. Keep your head down. And if you don’t,” he looked down at his blade, “I’ll gut you like a deer. You with me?”

Another frenzied nod, then Chanyeol smiled.

It would be a fun night.

Christiana followed his orders, walking calmly but briskly beside him. He unlocked the door, let her inside, did a quick scan of the area to rule out any nosy neighbors and then ducked into his home. He locked the door behind them (he had an advanced security system but he always liked using good, old fashioned deadbolts) and then pointed to the second door on his right.

He opened it and Christiana held her breath, anticipating the worst.

But behind that door was, simply, another door.

Chanyeol grinned.

“Bet you didn’t expect that, huh?” he asked.

But then, Chanyeol opened the second door and Christiana got a glimpse of the brownstone’s _real_ treasure – a soundproof, escape-proof, everything-the-fuck-else-proof panic room that Chanyeol had spent ten-thousand dollars transforming into his perfect torture chamber and killing field.

He was beaming now. This was, after all, his point of pride. This room symbolized everything he was and everything he _could_ be, while simultaneously smashing everything he hated about himself in the past. The stainless-steel appliances, the tools on the wall, the adjustable lighting, the drain in the floor, the table in the middle of the room, all the straps and whips… It had been worth every cent.

And the look on each woman’s face as she saw what the next ten to twelve hours had in store for her?

You couldn’t put a price on that.

That all had been a few hours ago. Once he got the girls, he liked to let them sit for a while and think about their lives. He wanted to think they had a chance, wanted to think they’d be able to bargain and bribe their way out of it. He strapped Christiana to the table, gagged her, and went to make himself some lunch. (Gags were essential. He didn’t want to hear these women speak, didn’t want to hear anything they had to say. He wanted them to _think_ they had hope but he didn’t want to hear about it. Besides, loud, shrill noises made his head hurt. Those giant ears weren’t just for show – they were really sensitive.)

While he sat in the kitchen and ate his sandwich, though, his mind started to wander. He couldn’t help it. Before long, he had his computer out, his fingers typing ‘ _the East-Side Assassin_ ’ into Google before his brain could register what he was doing.

He didn’t care for the moniker. If people hated serial killers so much, why did they treat them like celebrities? Why did they sensationalize them? Why did they put them on such pedestals?

Not that he thought of himself as a serial killer. That would be ridiculous. Serial killers killed innocent people. Chanyeol considered himself a street cleaner. The city was better off without women like Christiana, even if the NYPD might not see it that way.

Besides, the East-Side _Assassin_? Assassins killed important people – activists, politicians, celebrities. He killed scum-of-the-earth women who didn’t deserve what they had and took their insecurities out on the less fortunate. Strangling rich bitches in his panic-room-turned-torture-chamber was a far cry from assassinating people.

Maybe someday, when he stopped or got caught, he’d request a better nickname. Was he allowed to name himself? Was that something people did? Had any killer ever gotten to name himself?

Whatever. It was neither here nor there for Chanyeol. He didn’t plan on stopping _or_ getting caught anytime soon so what did it matter?

(Besides, he wasn't like most serial killers. Killing for him wasn't a compulsion. It wasn't need-based. He could go months without killing, years if he really wanted to. He killed when he saw someone who needed killing but outside of those incidents, he wasn't a violent man. He wasn't an angry man. He didn't fantasize about killing, didn't crave it. His rage was triggered by ignorance, by arrogance, by greed. The rest of the time, he thought himself to be a normal, well-adjusted guy. Killing was something of a hobby rather than extension of himself and he could stop it if necessary.)

He ran a search of his ridiculous new nickname and read some of the articles about himself. When those got boring, he read tweets and Facebook statuses. And when _that_ got old, he looked at his fan art.

There were cartoon renderings of what people thought he might look like, some hyper-realistic sketches done in pencil, other comic-esque animations. People wrote poems, love letters, all addressed to the East-Side Assassin. He even had two websites devoted to him. They weren’t dedicated to catching or stopping him, nor were they being used to discover his identity. They were straight up fan clubs. One even had a message board that specialized in user’s sexual fantasies about him.

Some people were really twisted.

And then, because he’d run out of new things to read and because his food was still digesting, he navigated to a familiar news site and found one of his favorites – a press conference held by the family of his last victim.

Her name had been Delilah Stanton and Chanyeol had taken his time with her. Having witnessed her being _especially_ nasty to a homeless man who’d just come inside a coffee shop to get out of the cold, Chanyeol decided that she needed an extra special punishment. But because she’d been away from her family for three whole days before her body was found, her family had reached out to the media, hoping they’d somehow be able to speak to Delilah’s captor through them and appeal to his empathy.

They certainly reached Chanyeol but they’d miscalculated one thing – Chanyeol didn’t _have_ empathy. Not for people like Christiana and Delilah. Did he have empathy for the Hispanic woman and the homeless man? Absolutely. But for rich bullies and abusers? No, he didn’t feel a thing.

Still, he enjoyed the press conference. Diane, Deliah’s younger sister, went to the podium, paper in her hand, tears in her eyes, and begged Chanyeol to let her sister go.

“Delilah is an amazing woman,” Diane said. “She’s warm, funny, smart, talented. She really cares about people, you know?” That had made Chanyeol laugh out loud. He lived alone but still, he looked around like he wanted to know if anyone else was hearing this bullshit. “We just want her back safe. We promise, we’ll never come find you. We won’t prosecute you. Just give her back.”

Chanyeol smiled throughout the entire press conference.

Diane didn’t realize it at the time – none of the families did – but Chanyeol was doing her a favor. He was helping her. Rich people like Delilah and Christiana and their families needed a dose of reality. They were horrible to people below them because they’d forgotten what it was like to struggle. Maybe they never had. Maybe they’d never worked a day in their whole lives. They didn’t know suffering, they didn’t know strife. Their lives were too comfortable, too pain-free.

But Chanyeol showed them the light. He murdered their sisters, their nieces, their mothers, their wives, and he reminded them what it meant to feel pain. Money couldn’t buy everything. It certainly couldn’t save their loved ones once he took them. And now they knew adversity. Now they knew anguish and agony. Their lives were no longer sheltered and privileged. They’d lost something they could never get back and they were better for it. Now they could live their lives. Now they could grow a little character. Now they could take stock in their own lives, recognize their own mortality, learn to appreciate the little things.

It was a win-win situation. Delilah and Christiana and others like them were wiped from the face of the earth, and their friends and family were much better people because of it.

When his ego had been sufficiently stroked and his purpose in life had been gainfully restored, Chanyeol closed his computer, washed his plate and changed his clothes. (He couldn’t very well get blood on his Under Armor. Even with his salary, that shit was expensive.)

What would he do today?

The endgame was always the same. He was big on strangulation, both as a realistic means to an end and as a concept. Something about using your hands, seeing the light fade from someone’s eyes, feeling the life leave their body… anything else seemed cheap in comparison.

Still, he _did_ have that panic room and it was filled with all sorts of goodies.

He wasn’t a sadist in a traditional sense. He wasn’t a sociopath. He had sympathy, empathy, compassion. Nothing about what he did was sexual. He didn’t get off on blood, gore or violence and he’d never once gotten aroused while hurting someone. That just wasn’t who he was.

This was about justice, not money or power or sex. It wasn’t even about the torture. That, more than anything, was curiosity. (The physical act itself, anyway. The pain it inflicted was entirely about retribution. He wanted to hurt these women the way they hurt others. An eye for an eye. He didn’t care if it made the whole damn world blind. At least then people couldn’t bear witness and stand idly by while their fellow man was mistreated and abused.)

He had things – drills and lighters and knives and tools – because they interested him. He wanted to see what they did to the body, to the flesh, to the soul. He’d always been a curious boy. He’d grown up taking things apart and putting them back together. And while his particular brand of torture wasn’t all that _violent_ (comparatively speaking, anyway), it did enough to satisfy that scientific itch in his brain. He had so many toys, in fact, that he’d never used the same thing twice. He limited his ministrations to three-per-victim and then, when he’d had his fill, he wrapped his fingers around her neck and squeezed.

It was easy.

The cops had figured out a pattern based solely on victimology. The fact that they’d been strangled? That was hardly unique. And the torture patterns? Those were entirely new and untraceable. Chanyeol took a strange sort of pride in that. His style was fresh, innovative, distinctly _him_. People on his fan sites had talked about that, and, frankly, he was glad they noticed. It made him feel good about his skill and the stylistic choices he’d made.

He figured he should get to work. Dressed in a brown t-shirt and basketball shorts that his heart had outgrown (he preferred running to sports now anyway), he opened one door, and then the other, stepping into the dark panic room with heavy footsteps. Christiana, still bound and gagged on the table, froze like someone had suddenly removed her batteries.

He hit the lights and smiled.

“Good,” Chanyeol teased, his deep voice booming off the insulated walls. “You’re still here.” He laughed at his own joke, the way he had the last six times, and walked over to the far wall. That’s where his toys lay, hanging against the wall in a completely unspectacular way. Out of context, it looked like any other toolkit – hammers, saws, wrenches, drills. In any other life, he could have been a carpenter or a dime-a-dozen, stay-at-home handyman.

But not in this one.

What would he use? He’d purchased a set of screwdrivers, five of them in various sizes, and they seemed to call to him like a siren’s song. As his fingers ghosted over the metal, he decided. Those would do. He opened his mouth to make another _hilarious_ comment but something buzzed against his thigh. His phone, he realized after a beat. A text.

Putting his golden commentary on hold, he reached into his pocket and fished out his iPhone, reading a message from Baekhyun, his friend and in-house tech god. Baekhyun, smart as he was, knew absolutely _nothing_ of Chanyeol’s other life, of his _real_ life. As far as Baekhyun knew, Chanyeol was an advertising executive whose hobbies included red wine, running and HBO documentaries.

_Found that kid and her mom_ , the text read. _Little girl’s name is Ingrid Delgado. You were correct. She goes to school in Washington Heights. Mom’s name is Lupe. She’s a cleaning lady._

Chanyeol laughed to himself, nostalgic.

Lupe.

Just like the maid his mother had sent away.

Smiling, he said, “Small world, isn’t it?”

He grabbed the thickest screwdriver from the wall and put it in his pocket, leaving his iPhone on the counter. Then, because he felt like, he grabbed a small saw and a claw hammer.

Slowly, he walked around the other side of the table, grinning as he looked Christiana up and down. He thought of Lupe and Ingrid Delgado, then about Lupe his former maid, then about mommy dearest.

By the time he reached the doors, he was smiling like a maniac.

If Christiana hadn’t been scared before, she was now.

“You’re going to learn a lot today,” Chanyeol said, watching her. “You’re going to learn a lesson in humility and social class and empathy. Most importantly, your family is going to learn a very valuable lesson about priorities and appreciating life.” He reached down and ran the smooth, blunt end of the hammer up Christiana’s bare leg. Leaning in and enjoying the way she flinched, he whispered, “I bet you wish you hadn’t screamed at a mother and her children over an ugly Gucci blouse, huh?” He threw his head back and laughed, relishing in the new spark of fear in her eyes, then he turned to close both doors. He felt a familiar rush of adrenaline and excitement course through him as the second door clicked shut, then he looked over his shoulder at the woman strapped to his table and said, “Let’s have some fun.”


End file.
